Restoration Mistakes

I write in response to Tim's recent editorial. I too have been victimized by poor work from previous owners. But, who is to blame? Is it the nice lady who owned the car or the one before her who had the forsight to cobble two or more cars together to make one operational vehicle or the original owner who tried to maintain a cool sports car for daily use when original parts were always on back order. I suspect it was none of the above who all likely paid good money to reputable shops to first maintain, then restore and then repair a vintage sports car. This is where I would aim my indignation. Sure the customer has the responsibility to select wisely but this is not always a straightforward process. The best shop in town ten years ago could now be horrible. We have all seen this and all too often in the car hobby. Great advertisement does not make a good shop, best prices or highest is no real clue and reputations are fleeting. Take your Triumph to the local car radio specialist and watch the kid out back with the wire snips, channel locks and pig-tails install it. How many mechanics will trace out an electrical fault when there is the needed 12 volts coursing through a nearby wire. Tim, your comments are valid but point your finger not only in the direction of the previous owner but also at the state of vintage automobile repair shops. After 12 years, I still cannot recommend one to work on Fiats within 200 miles of me. My Fiat was taken to a paint shop and decent money was exchanged. There was overspray everywhere and nothing was removed or even masked well but the car was now red and the lady did not complain about the red muffler or red rubber grommets. My Miata was fudged up after a minor accident. The owner followed the insurance advice and the car got a shoddy rear panel paint and body job in more or less matching pearl white. The car should not have been painted in cheap clear coat that has all but turned to dust. My advice is, as you say, to do it right or not at all but often I fear this means doing it yourself. I would have to be major car magazine editor before I could be confident that I would get the best effort from any restoration shop that would realize that their public reputation hinges on the work performed for this customer.

Cheers Ron

I read Tim’s column last night with mixed feelings. True, in a perfect world everyone would be able to do that repair or restoration job the right way. Tim advocates that if a person isn’t capable of doing the work right then they just shouldn’t do it at all. Tim has tremendous ability, years of experience and is well-connected enough to get expert help from others when needed. Tim’s cars are superb. But some people might not have the ability or the financial means yet they might still have a strong desire to be involved in the hobby and want their classic to be the best they can make it: bondo, mismatched screw types paint overspray, etc. I personally wouldn’t do that, a lot of you wouldn’t do that, and Tim obviously wouldn’t do that. But some enthusiasts would and they’d be happy with the results. And if some day they want to sell the vehicle, fine. Let the buyer beware!

Where Tim is spot-on though is with the person trying to make a quick buck with a quick fix and then trying to pass the vehicle off as something other than it is. I saw a Bugeye for sale in the show room of a classic car dealership in San Diego a few years ago that had an appalling re-spray ... paint on the rubber moldings and even on the tires. They were asking top dollar for it. It would have been better if they'd left it with the original patina.

I haven't read the editorial yet and I'm sure Tim will chime in eventually, but I'm guessing he is more referring to professionals charging good $ for shoddy restoration work vs. a beginning DIY'er restoring their first car, where mistakes and less than perfect workmanship are to be expected. When I am able to start on my Volvo, I plan to do the best I can, but admit that I have no delusions about the car ending up as a concourse show winner. I'll be happy if it passes as a 50-foot driver.

Epp

Unless I totally misread the column, I believe it was directed primarily at non-professional people who may not be capable of doing a job "right" for whatever the reason, mechanical aptitude, financial means or other. Forgive me Tim, but I viewed it as a bit of a rant. (Not that there's anything wrong with that)!

I skipped Tim's column to read about one of my favorite cars of all time (Iso Grifo), but I'm certainly looking forward to reading it now. I certainly hope it is more in line with what Ian is saying. If not for (often sloppy) amateur repairs, most old cars would simply disapear to rot away in a field somewhere. Passing off a car with amateur repairs as top condition is another issue entirely. I'm sure we've all seen far too much of that....

I'm a person of relatively modest means and perfect cars are beyond both my ability to pay and repair. I think many enthusiasts are happy with safe drivers that might not be perfect. That being said, a fender sculpted from 100 pounds of body filler is never right...

As I get older, wealthier and more experienced, I do get better at it, and perhaps I have lost some point of reference, but still, when I was young, inexperienced and poor, I still tried to do things right, and usually did. What my column was about, was people just butchering stuff. For instance, I referenced painting an interior. Semi gloss costs the same as glossy paint. This is just lazy when you don't use the right stuff. My point is no matter what you do to your car, slow down, use the right materials and try to do it right.

I agree with Tim completely. I've had to replace rusted floors that were club sandwiches of old patches epoxied together, and took three times as long to cut out as it took to weld in new, proper panels. I've ripped big sections of wiring harnesses completely out because it was faster to start over than to try to untangle the mess that multiple owners had bodged together out of lamp cord. I've pulled plastic wall shelf anchors out of SU dome ports that someone stuck in there so he could hang the wrong air filters on there using drywall screws. I had a customer who had an ugly, non-vintage pop-up sun roof installed in an otherwise nice vintage car because he didn't understand that the reason it was so hot inside was that his heater valve was stuck open. I had another guy who stuck a 10 PSI electric fuel pump on his car with no pressure regulator to be sure his harmless little Weber DGV was getting enough fuel. I had to fix an oil leak where someone had drilled out a stripped motor mount bolt hole to take a bigger bolt, went right through into the crankcase, and then cross-threaded the new bolt so it wasn't tight anyway.

Fact is, once upon a time I did lots of equally evil things to my cars with the best of intentions, because I didn't know any better and had no frame of reference as to what "right" constitutes. I had to to learn by doing stuff on my own, there was no Internet, no marque club in my area -- I just had to do the best I could making it up as I went along.

In fairness to the bodgers, there's a lot of stuff that's not obvious when you're on your own trying to keep an old car running well past its design life. Basic stuff like:

The hardware store in town has all sorts of new nuts and bolts, helicoil kits, and wire in many sizes and colors.

Metric tools sorta work on American fasteners. Inch-size tools work better. And BTW, the bolt that takes a 1/2" wrench is a 5/16" bolt, not a 1/2".

Zip ties are fine for keeping a wire harness tidy, but they are a good replacement for hose clamps.

If you stuff that rust hole in your rocker panel with steel wool and Bondo over it, the rest of the rocker is going to rust out even faster.

Possibly the hardest: The factory engineers knew more than you do, and if you're going to change what they designed, you should have a pretty darned good reason.

And the beat goes on...

I know I work here but I am on Tim's side. Part of that reason is upbringing. My first real job while in high school was working at a Porsche shop in Tucson. I was told exactly what the right part or tool to use was, how to use it and why to use it. If I screwed up or tried to cut corners, the shop owner had this habit of throwing hand tools such as combination wrenches at you and he had really good aim. He also had the habit of sending me to the proper factory book before doing a job for the first time and then back to him with questions.

As a result, this is how I work. I first research and read the books I need to if I am doing something for the first time. If I am still not sure, i call or email a few legitimate experts for advice, then I start the job. Most of what this takes is time and care. The older these cars get the more they benefit from being assembled and reassembled properly. My feeling is that I have a bit of an obligation to do the job correctly and if I don't have the money right away to save the job until I do.

Personally if I am shopping for a car and see a myriad of problems with incorrect parts and terrible bodywork I walk away. If the only cars in my price range for a car are like that I choose a different car to buy until I can afford a car in better condition. If the XKE is too expensive then maybe I will buy a TR6 or alternately save a bit more money and put off a purchase.

I hope that does not sound way too logical. :)

Stuff is butchered. Of this there is no question. My comments are about where to lay the blame. Not only are shadetree mechanics but also some shops are guilty of shoddy workmanship. So I am with both Tim and Andy in asking owners who do their own work to do it right or get it done right. The latter is not always easy since all you might see is a finished product with fresh paint or fully assembled and installed motor that may hide multiple sins that show up a few months later. My suggestion to owners who rely on shops is to choose a specialist who uses good shops. Whether it be paint or engine machining, he will assemble the car and can see the quality of the work performed before you pay. Cheers Ron

This is timely. In another posting in the forum there is a guy with a Mercedes 190SL he wants to restore. He posted that he did not want to go all out on the restoration and I advised him that if he did, he would easily be able to recoup his money with the 190 market being what it is.

If you have a nice car do it right and you can be proud of it.

Yes there are shops out there that do poor quality work. I find that many of these are shops that restore cars they are unfamiliar with. I for one would not go to a shop that was not a specialist in the car I was having work done to. All classics have things unique to them that someone with no knowledge of can mess up. Again it comes down to doing your homework before you decide on a shop. Work to become an expert on the car you own and you will easily know when the owner and staff of a shop is are also experts.

In reply to WilD:

Not to hi-jack the thread, but I agree that Iso Grifo was gorgeous! Wish I had the money for one.

Even the ISO Rivolta and Lele are getting expensive these days.

Andy Reid wrote: Work to become an expert on the car you own...

For me, this was the key. My high school autoshop teacher had been turning wrenches on British cars for nearly 40 years before I ever came under his tutelage. As a result, my work habits are fairly solid. Having said this, I drove and maintained Spitfires and GT6's for about 15 years before I did the body-off resto on my current GT6. Believe me, the years of experience paid off. I was able to make quick progress and save a good deal of money by simply knowing absolutely everything there was to know about GT6's!

Of equal importance is knowing when you're out of your comfort zone. I'm good with a wrench, but shaky at best with a spray gun. When the time came I swallowed my pride and the car professionally shot.

In reply to boeingpilot:

Then you're the guy who can answer the following question: Can one sanely remove the oil pan from a '79 Spitfire without losing one's mind or fingers while the engine is IN the car? I've heard there are bolts at the back of the pan that require one to have an infant's fingers to remove and replace. I'm an apartment dweller, and the landlord would go bonkers if I pulled the engine. Have you or someone you know done this? --thanks

flyinlow wrote: In reply to boeingpilot: Then you're the guy who can answer the following question: Can one sanely remove the oil pan from a '79 Spitfire without losing one's mind or fingers while the engine is IN the car? I've heard there are bolts at the back of the pan that require one to have an infant's fingers to remove and replace. I'm an apartment dweller, and the landlord would go bonkers if I pulled the engine. Have you or someone you know done this? --thanks

I have - to replace the thrust washers. Some of the bolts above the cross member were a little obstructed, but I don't recall using anything other than a standard 3/8 ratcher and a Gearwrench to remove them. Set the engine at TDC and then turn the crank 90 degrees. That will allow the front of the pan to slide between the crank and the cross-member.

But back OT...

I'll admit that in this day of information access, claiming ignorance isn't much of an excuse anymore. My Volvo was the victim of a bodged restoration complete with buckets of bondo and Brillo-pads used as rocker filler. The #1 reason I haven't started working on the car is a desire to do the work as well as I can and I know I'm not in a position to do that.

In reply to Ian F: Thanks, it is the thrust washers...

Are you a member of NASS (North American Spitfire Squadron)?

When I replaced the ones in our '79 4+ year ago (was one of the first project I did on the car), we found a how-to... damned if I can find it now...

In reply to Ian F: No not a member yet. Looks interesting though. FYI a '67 was my very first car. I bought it when I was 17. Towed it home (surprised my parents with it in the driveway) --it had a locked clutch-- and rebuilt many, many of its systems. I learned a lot from it. Now, many years , and projects later, I bought a '79 off ebay. Original, 49k miles,unrusted body needing neglected maintenance--and repair an engine knock. That last item didn't show up until well into driving it home. But, they are bone- simple, easy to work on, mostly, and I'm reliving my youth whenever I fire it up/ Makes me smile, and THAT's the reason to own a "recreational" vehicle.

Oh, P.S. The '70 GT6+ that replaced the '67 Spit was a real education in restoration. And getting my first 4-wheel drift on an entrance ramp onto the Long Island Expressway. now that was fun.!